MGH Hotline 5.15.09 Exactly 100 flowers were planted in the Howard Ufelder, MD, Healing Garden April 28 to recognize the newly announced members of the one hundred – 100 groups and individuals who are making a difference in cancer care.

MGH Hotline 10.16.09 Seven MGH-affiliated physicians and researchers join prestigious Institute of Medicine seven MGH-affiliated physicians and researchers were among the 65 new members and five foreign associates recently elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM), a recognized leader for independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on health issues.

ALL MGHERS are invited to attend the 2011 meeting of the MGH Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), which will commemorate the hospital’s bicentennial with a look back at significant research accomplishments of MGH investigators and examine challenges facing today’s research community.

The 64th meeting of the MGH Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) on April 14 celebrated key accomplishments of MGH investigators, past and present, and examined strategies for meeting the challenges currently facing the academic biomedical research community.

MGH Hotline 6.10.11 Selected from among 115 applications from across the MGH research community, the inaugural MGH Research Scholars recently were announced at the annual meeting of the MGH Research Advisory Council (RAC).

Daniel A. Haber, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Cancer Center, and Kate Robbins, a 10-year survivor of advanced stage lung cancer, were among the many models who walked the runway at the Friends of the Mass General Cancer Center Fall Benefit: Couture for Cancer Care at the Revere Hotel in Boston.

A team of researchers led by Daniel Haber, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Cancer Center, recently announced that they have revealed a unique molecular mechanism that might control the growth of cancer cells.

The largest study to correlate genetics with response to cancer drugs releases its first results today. The researchers behind the study, based at the MGH Cancer Center and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, describe the responses of 350 cancer samples to 18 anticancer therapeutics.

MGH Cancer Center researchers have discovered a previously unknown feature of common tumor cells – massive overexpression of satellite repeats, which are DNA sequences that do not code for proteins. The findings may improve understanding of tumor development and provide a new cancer biomarker.

Researchers from the MGH Cancer Center have identified a new potential strategy for treating colon tumors driven by mutations in the KRAS gene, which usually resist both conventional and targeted treatments.

Detailed analysis of genes expressed in circulating tumor cells – cells that break off from solid tumors and travel through the bloodstream – has identified a potential treatment target in metastatic pancreatic cancer.

A new system for isolating rare circulating tumor cells – living solid tumor cells found at low levels in the bloodstream – shows significant improvement over previously developed devices and does not require prior identification of tumor-specific target molecules.